England's batting is alright, it's the bowling they have to worry about. Or at least, that's what Steve thought. "Rubbish! Absolute bloody garbage!" he was shouting from his front row seat as Tim Bresnan lolloped in to get walloped by the Pakistani tail in his final over. "I wouldn't pay to watch that," he added afterwards, to no one in particular.

This seemed a strange sentiment given that Steve had already shelled out $70 to sit in the party enclosure at Kensington. But as he pointed out, that includes all your food and 10 free drinks, either Banks beers or cocktails the colour of the mouthwash they give you at the dentist. It was supposed to be a Sex on the Beach but a better name would have been a rinse and spit. The party stand has a sand floor and, oddly, a row of jet-skis and a wooden fishing boat. The Oval is more than a kilometre away from the sea.

Strange man, Steve. Quick as he was to criticise his team he was speedier still to stand to attention whenever England took a wicket, staying stock still while holding his flag high above him as though he were welcoming home the fleet.

Kevin Pietersen agreed with him anyway, more or less. "It really is nice, I've played in this team for five or six years now, to have a batting line-up like we have got at the moment is incredible. To have every single bloke from one down to ten able to hit sixes is brilliant. When I started we had Trescothick, who was a superstar, but other than him we didn't have that many six-hitters. All the team can hit sixes now, which a great improvement."

True as that is, sixes alone are not the secret to Pietersen's method. Coming into this tournament he was the second-leading run scorer in international Twenty20, a way behind Brendon McCullum. But he was top of another list: no batsman in international T20 – with the qualification of facing at least 250 deliveries – has faced a lower percentage of dot balls. Only 28% of the deliveries Pietersen plays are dots. The only other batsman in the game with a percentage under 30 is England's next man in, Paul Collingwood. The addition of the two dashers to the top of England's order allows these two to play their way into the innings without feeling too much pressure to score more quickly.

KP was in belligerent mood today anyway. His audience appreciated that. Bridgetown was filled, for once, not with schoolchildren on free tickets but with genuine fans, the English outnumbering the Pakistanis by around five to one. If anything it was a touch too English in atmosphere. Surely something is up when the DJ is celebrating boundaries with UB40's version of Red Red Wine rather than Tony Tribe's.

Over in the Greenidge & Haynes stand a group of deadpan Pakistanis in full shalwar kameez were sat stroking their beards. In the rows behind them a gaggle of Englishmen stood with their shirts off, red bellies hanging down over the brim of their shorts. "You bothered about missing the election then?" I asked one of them, "no I live in a safe Tory borough," he replied with the air of a man who has left Cerberus to guard his house while he was away on holiday. "I'm much more worried about missing Gloucestershire," he broke off mid-thought to shout out "BOWLIN' SWANEE!"

The last time I saw that party they were shouting "you're not singing anymore!" at a nearby Pakistani group who had been bellowing out "Pakistan! Zindabad!" through the first innings. "You shut up man," shouted back one of the Pakistan fans, "you shut up now! We're still here. We're world champions! What the hell are you?"

Later a nine-year old Bajan boy came up and asked to borrow my binoculars. He was impeccably well-spoken, and leaned over to whisper in my ear, "You see that man over there?" He nodded towards a topless Englishman with a cup of rinse and spit in each hand, arms outstretched while he wiggled his hips in an approximation of a dance. It looked like nothing as much as it did the death throes of a crucified man. "I think he has had too much too drink. He has a potty mouth."

The official entertainment was a lot more, well, entertaining. The organisers let a handful of bands wander around the ground, each with their own gimmick. One group included two gymnasts dressed like Mummers and a third man in a green lycra cat suit. "We are Shaggy Bears and green monkey," they helpfully explained. Another was led by a large lady with an enormous false pair of buttocks under her skirt, which she wiggled seductively at the leering men around her. My favourite though was the solitary Rastafarian wearing a T-shirt emblazoned "I'm bringing it", whacking the life out of a triangle.

The pitch-side swimming pool had also been taken over by the English. One of them looked so hungover the attendant confessed to me that he was a little worried he might throw up in the water. "How long have you guys been in here?" I asked, "all day mate. Whenever we have to get out we just jump back over the railing and come in again. The man keeps telling us off, but he's only a little guy so it's not a problem." There's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England. I think I have found it.